ifro-

This lexeme is found once in a final formula of a poetic inscription found at the cemetery of Sardis and datable to the 5^th or 4^th century BCE.

[I.Y.]

inf.

ifrol

LW 11.11 (Sardis)

The other, outdated grammatical interpretations of this verbal form are reviewed in Gusmani 1964a:131. It is impossible to take it as a finite verbal form, because fa-korfid has this function in the relevant clause, while the participles in -l are no longer accepted as part of the Lydian grammar. The recent attempt to draw a clause boundary between ifrol and fa-korfid (Schürr 2000a:125) yields a clause where a clitic =t is exceptionally attached to the third stressed word and therefore has no merit.

[I.Y.]

The verb occurs in a curse formula and denotes an undesirable action undertaken against burial installations (for the syntax of the passage, cf. the discussion under korfi-). According to the suggestion of Sasseville 2021a:185, its contextual meaning is ‘to seize for oneself, lay one’s hands on’. Melchert 1997a:42 n. 12 analyses this verb as a cognate with Hitt. ēpp-/app-^(mi) ‘to take, seize’, which in general fits well its contextual meaning. Yet, even closer formal matches to the Lydian verb are arguably Hitt. appatriye/a-^(mi) ‘to take in pledge; to confiscate’ (EDHIL:243) and CLuw. īppattarissa-⁽ⁱ⁾ ‘to distrain, confiscate’, themselves derivatives of the Hittite abstract noun appatar ‘taking, seizing’ and its Luwian hypothetical counterpart *ippatar. The derivation of ifro- from earlier *iftro- is formally unproblematic, since the consonant cluster *-ftr- is not otherwise attested in Lydian. If so, we may be dealing with yet another Anatolian derivative from an abstract noun ‘taking, seizing’, probably having a specialized legal meaning, as is the case of Hittite and Luwian cognates mentioned.

[I.Y.]

Quite independently from the proposed etymology, the stem shape suggests that we are dealing with a denominative formation, where the accent fell on the derivational suffix. Since Lyd. *a can secondarily develop into o in the vicinity of a labial consonant (cf. kof(i)-, korfi-^(d)), it is possible that ifro- originally belonged together with the Lydian denominatives in -a- (cf. further under arwo-). Since the verb is only attested in the infinitive, it is impossible to say whether it was the leniting or non-leniting a-suffix, both of which are present in Lydian.

A different approach is advocated in Sasseville 2021a:185f., where the nominal derivation base is implicitly reconstructed as *ifro- (or perhaps *ifru-). Yet the proposed comparison with Luw. *ibaru- ‘left hand’, extracted from the possessive adjective /ibarw-ass(a/i)-/ ‘western’, which implies the original meaning ‘to lay one’s left hand on’ for the denominative verb, appear to be illuminating in the absence of typological parallels.

[I.Y.]

For the lemma head see Lyd. *if-.